Aside from the Jindal angle, which I really don't give a rip about since I'm not from Louisiana -- although I do recognize he's an up-and-coming Republican, so the NYT must go after him -- 16K sounds like a rather paltry salary for a state legislator position, part-time or not. I would need to know more about how the La. legislature works.

Slappy, you say it's three months of work a year. But how is that divided up? Is the legislature in session for three months and not the other nine? If that's the case, does that mean they're at it full-time during those three months? And does that prevent them from working their real job then? I would imagine most folks qualified to win a state legislature position are also qualified have jobs that would earn about 64K a year.

I also imagine that they're getting phone calls from constituents all 12 months of the year.